Did American Eagle Crash Land, Or Is It Flying High?

Marketing Unfiltered 42 - FINALLY, SOMEONE IS TACKLING THE DENIM DRAMA FROM ALL SIDES

Author

Danny Denhard
August 15, 2025

📝 AUGUST 15th | EDITORS NOTE 📝

Welcome Back, Marketing Leaders ☀️!

This week, Harry tackles the recent “rage-bait Marketing” that is the American Eagle denim drama.

Thanks to everyone who completed the Future of Marketing survey. There are some brilliant answers, and the report will land in your inbox in the coming weeks. If you missed it, you can complete the 4 minute survey here.

Next week, we have a deep dive into Product Marketing & its critical function in today’s landscape

Thanks again for reading, and go enjoy your weekend!
Danny Denhard - ( 👋 wanna connect - email or LinkedIn)

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FINALLY, SOMEONE IS TACKLING THE DENIM DRAMA FROM ALL SIDES

Did American Eagle Crash Land, Or Is It Flying High?

Did American Eagle Crash Land, Or Is It Flying High?

There Are Two Sides To Every Story – This One Has Many More…

Nature may abhor a vacuum, but what human nature loves more than anything else is a scandal. Gossip, whimsy, ignominy or caught in 4K – human beings are hopelessly addicted to ingesting and sharing bad news in all of its grimy guises, as long as it’s happening to someone else. 

The recent American Eagle X Sydney Sweeney campaign went from nothing to something to everything in a matter of days, bouncing between viral genius and neo far right Nazi propaganda with the schizophrenic severity of a crack addled kangaroo. 

The nature of modern media is one of contradictions and compromises. You know the old adage about plumbers? You can pick two from fast, good and cheap? Well, the equivalent compromise for brand marketers seeking fame for their products might look something like this:-

And that’s what they desire, right? Fame – at any reasonable cost, both actual and reputational befitting the evolutionary status of the brand in question. 

A start up brand with meagre budgets might be pushed into taking more risks, eschewing brand conformity in favour of more outlandish stunts, videos, guerilla media and campaigns. A mature brand, conversely, is less inclined to risk it all on a Hail Mary throw of the dice. They have more money to spend, greater access to celebrity and more to lose should the world decide that their effort at being edgy has tiptoed over the line of good taste and landed on its ass in the land of outrage.      

That was then, however. And were in the now – a socially enabled, digitally enhanced, speed of light media landscape in which a Tank Top wearing Bruv with a bowl haircut can be off his nut in Ibiza one day and being wooed as a potential ITV prime time star the next. 

It’s utterly relentless being a marketer in this strobe light palace of bullshit. The speed of thought is faster than light and the Zeitgeist we’re all expected to keep hold of with our fingernails never stops changing. 

When everything’s moving this fast, mistakes will be made. So American Eagle found to their cost when their generic jeans ad featuring the shapely Sydney Sweeney was translated by the left leaning quadrants of America and LinkedIn from hokey celebrity titillation into a pro-eugenics hate fest before they could launch the second wave PR and social follow up story.   

Sex sells, always has, always will?

I myself landed in the latter camp, mostly because in Ancient Greek, ‘Good Genes’ literally translates as ‘Eugenics’.

I was wrong, of course. But having never studied Ancient Greek, that’s no real surprise. The most straightforward translation of ‘good genes’ into Ancient Greek would be eugenēis gonai, ‘Eugenēis’ meaning ‘well-born’ or ‘of good stock’, while ‘gonai’ refers to offspring or lineage. It’s a fair few postcodes away from ‘Great Jeans’, but by the time I realised my mistake, I’d already jumped on the bandwagon of Antis with a LinkedIn post vilifying the campaign, thus securing my illegitimate spot on one side of an increasingly wonky fence.

The main AE ad keeps growing - VidIQ data

On the other side sat those who couldn’t see what the problem was – let’s call them The Pros. A pretty girl maxing out her assets in a jeans ad, which had then been mistranslated by the gnashing Wokerati into a hate message because, well, they can find meaning in anything so long as it makes them right. Plus, the Pros pointed out, the campaign was supporting a charity, so who are the woke left to say it’s evil? Unfortunately for the Pro camp, Both ‘Doctor’ Phil and Ted Cruz (a man for whom a lobotomy would instantly render him more likeable and intelligent) jumped in to support them on Twitter:-

“Wow. Now the crazy Left has come out against beautiful women”.

When you’re agreeing with this bearded, bile-spewing can of Spam, you’ve got to be a tiny bit worried that you’ll end up on the wrong side of history.  

‘But, but, but…’ cried the Antis (a camp which I’d left by this point, leaving me straddling the fence wondering what the fuck was going on in the world) ‘But what about THE VIDEO?

‘What video?’

‘THE VIDEO AMERICAN EAGLE RAPIDLY AND PERMANENTLY DELETED FROM ALL THEIR SOCIAL CHANNELS. IT’S THEIR GRASSY KNOLL!!!’

‘I didn’t see it. Never happened’ said the Pros, arms firmly crossed in the smug stance of those who know they’re in the right.

Well, some people saw the video and its content adds, shall we say, a little spice to the porridge:-

Pulled ad via Reddit

“Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair colour, personality, and even eye colour. My jeans are blue”.

That was Sydney, reading a script, in the American Eagle social video supporting the now rapidly disappearing print and digital ad of the same genre. And, well, it isn’t damning evidence, but it certainly had me leaning off my fence to listen with a softer ear to the shouty left Wokists claiming that American Eagle was at least a little mangy.

That video was pulled down shortly after the Antis looked like the might have a popular point, only to be replaced with, well, this effort. You’d see less T&A in a Soho clip joint, so they’ve just replaced one controversial take with an outdated stereotypical one. The Cannes judges must be sharpening their pencils already… 

We could go on like this all day. For what it’s worth, I ended up still sat on the fence, largely not giving a shit about American Eagle, Ted Cruz, Doctor Phil or advertising as a whole. However I do feel a little sorry for Sydney Sweeney who will have her face, breasts, ass and reputation plastered all over this blight on society til the end of time, and I also believe that American Eagle was most likely well aware of the potential for grandstanding ire its campaign would cause and purposefully loaded both barrels as a result. 

Because this is what works in the information age: – 

Fame is the target, controversial content that seeds division is the accelerant and angry debate is the missile. 

As an added bonus, we’re all so plugged into so many feeds we have digital myopia – even the worst scandals by brands, celebrities and politicians evaporate into the ether the moment they’re superseded by the next juicier, more scandalous or more damaging shit storm. I mean, didn’t Trump get pissed on by a Russian pro? How long did that flawless gem of socio-political hilarity stay in the public’s consciousness? And how little damage did it do him in the long run?  

What we’re in now is a hot mess of brands fighting to beat other brands at all costs - ethics and morality be damned. Entertaining consumers alone is too risky a strategy. There’s simply too much info, too much money, too much to gain by too many brands fighting for eyeballs and brains ripped to shreds by a tsunami of daily bollocks on multiple social feeds and group chat platforms. 

Being ‘the story’ by any means possible is the goal, and if they fuck up and step over the invisible line at which the world turns against them? Who cares – collect the fame points, bin the bad PR hangover and go again next month with a pocketful of sales and a share price that looks like the Alps in profile.

Brands will decide to go big with campaigns that anger half the world because if they don’t, they risk a fate even worse than cancellation.

They risk being ignored.

Harry Lang

CMO, Managing Director of marketing consultancy Brand Architects and author of the 5-Star rated marketing guidebook ‘Brands, Bandwagons & Bullshit,’ available on Amazon.
You can connect with Harry on LinkedIn or email him at [email protected].

Thanks for reading, and if you’d like to discuss Sydney Sweeney's drama hit reply or DM Harry and me on LinkedIn.

Danny Denhard 
» If you need help: I coach leaders, consult with startups and challenger brands and advise companies looking to grow, so get in touch

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